Useful Roles in Society
One can take the view that a person’s usefulness to society can be evaluated by how much society pays that person to perform their function. For those who are so inclined to consider this model, look at the U.S. News ranking of Best Careers (2007).
Fields that Matter
- Accounting, Finance and Economics
- Education (relating to things in this list)
- Engineering, Construction and Logistics
- Medicine, Health and Nutrition Sciences
- Marketing, Communications and Foreign Language
It is also nice to have writers, musicians and artists, but they do not, generally speaking, improve lifespan nor Gross Domestic Product. These roles have lower economic incentive because they only implicitly contribute to capital by increasing the quality of life of a society’s principal contributors (above.) As with any niche in society, however, a role’s effectiveness is not necessarily limited by it’s inherent structural constraints.